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Friday, March 10, 2006

Just started and I already need help!

I just started Mermaid tonight. I knitted the i-cord. 29 inches long. Okay. So far, so good.

Now...picking up stitches. This may sound stupid, but from where do I pick up the stitches. The side of the i-cord? The back? I want to do this correctly. I know I will probably frogging a lot during this whole Mermaid process, but I am trying to cut down on making unecessary mistakes. Can someone explain? I am sure it is simple, but I want to make sure.

3 comments:

In general, you pick up stitches from an i-cord such that the "public" side looks the nicest. So do it so that it hides any sins you might find.

However, not to discourage you once you've already done all that i-cord, if you're feeling hesitant about picking up those stitches, you might want to read my project notes for Mermaid, in particular the part where I talk about doing an i-cord bind-off instead. Details about that and photos of my test sample are here.

I was thinking of trying out the provisional cast on the the i-cord bind off, but I have never done either of those techniques before and was not sure how to do them.

Most knitting books do address the provisional cast on, so I am sure I could figure that out, but nothing is mentioned of i-cord bind off, so I opted for the original instructions. If I have trouble picking up, I will do some research and try to find instructions. The optional method does look nicer, since the stitches don't show through.

I just started the first ridge, and may have made a huge error already, as well. Tried the provisional cast-on and cast-off Amy! describes in a swatch, which looked great, and attempted the same I-cord bind-off on the real thing, starting at the neck and ending at the hem. The front (exposed) side showed all those little color A loops, exactly the opposite of what happened with the swatch. So I went back and picked up stitches as if the whole provisional cast-on hadn't happened, but for whatever reason the I-cord is flat, not round, like normal. And after "fixing" the wrong-side color A business, I read the pattern again and see that the "right-side" appearance is supposed to happen at the collar. Is this right? Being at the first ridge, it wouldn't really be that bad, to restart, I guess.